SEATTLE – Intiman Theatre has a refreshing tonic for a hot summer night.
“The Play’s the Thing,” the company’s current production, revitalizes like a tall, cool drink without the calories. It’s a slight comedy, a period piece set on the glamorous French Riviera of the 1920s, that delivers big belly laughs over three smartly choreographed acts.
The clever set-up – a play within a play – allows plenty of room for mannered farce, but the comedy is both sly and broadly drawn. There are lots of theater in-jokes, but you don’t need to be an insider to find the humor.
Why is it so difficult to begin a play, an actor asks, speaking directly to us. “The audience quiets down. Actors enter the stage, and the struggle begins.” And so it goes.
Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnar got the notion for this play after he overheard his wife making romantic talk with another man. He suspected an affair, but she was just rehearsing a play.
In 1926 English humorist P.G. Wodehouse (famous for his character Jeeves) wrote an adaptation of Molnar’s play. It’s a frothy comedy that rarely falls flat despite its age. The writing holds up, but it wouldn’t without Intiman’s talented cast and slick staging.
John Arnone’s set is a sumptuous drawing room overlooking an azure harbor at dusk. Lights twinkle outside, and a spiffy little yacht glides by. You expect to see Cole Porter at the grand piano.
Albert (Quinlin Corbett) is a young composer besotted by the dishy blond Illona (Heather Guiles). When Albert overhears the heavy breathing and mushy love talk between Illona and the aging actor Almady (Mark Capri), he’s brokenhearted and ready to chuck her and his latest operetta.
His artistic collaborators see disaster looming for the new operetta. Something must be done to save the play and, if need be, the love affair.
Sandor Turai (David Cromwell) is a flamboyant impresario with an agile mind. He cooks up a plan to write a bogus play – the play within a play – to fool young Albert.
Cromwell is hilarious as Turai, bringing a deft, comic style to the role of the quick-thinking playwright. He gets solid support from Laurence Ballard as his sidekick Mansky. Larry Paulsen delivers a nice comic turn as a twittering, deadly earnest secretary. And Clayton Corzatte is pitch-perfect as the droll hotel butler with a deadpan delivery.
The third act belongs to Capri who, as the pompous actor Almady, is called upon to recite volumes of tongue-twisting dialogue, much of it in French, in the bogus play. He’s hysterical.
Director John Michael Higgins, a noted actor whose movie credits include the “mockumentaries” “Best in Show” and “A Mighty Wind,” knows his way around comedy, and it shows here.
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